Amphetamine-type psychostimulants (ATS), such as amphetamine (AMPH), 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), and methamphetamine (METH) are psychoactive substances widely abused, due to their powerful...

The aim of this study was to explore further the development of postural control in healthy children. The novelty of this study was to resort to both spatial and temporal analysis of the center of pressure...

A vast scientific literature has dealt with gender-specific risk for brain disorder. That field is evolving toward a consensus to the effect that the estrogen hormone family is outstandingly and uniquely...

Hypoxic-ischemic brain damage (HIBD), a leading cause of perinatal disability and death, has limited therapeutic options. Stem cell therapy has been demonstrated as a potential novel therapy for neurological...

Proper placental development is essential during pregnancy since it forms the interface between the maternal–foetal circulations and is critical for foetal nutrition and oxygenation. Neurotrophins such...

Over the past few decades, biomarkers have become increasingly utilized as non-invasive tools in the early diagnosis and management of various clinical conditions. In perinatal medicine, the improved...

The IGF-I/PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathway plays an important role in the regulation of cell growth, proliferation, differentiation, motility, survival, metabolism and protein synthesis. Insulin-like...

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a debilitating condition often resulting in paralysis, yet currently there is no effective treatment. Stem cell transplantation is a promising therapeutic strategy for promoting...

Intrauterine exposure of term and premature infants to infection/inflammation may increase the risk of perinatal brain injury, which may be more serious than that incurred by interpartum exposure to...

Recently, there has been a wealth of research into structural and functional brain connectivity, and how they change over development. While we are far from a complete understanding, these studies have...

The generation of new neurons from neural stem cells (NSCs) throughout adult life in the mammalian brain is a biological process that fascinates scientists for its uniqueness and restorative potential....

Tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC) is an autosomal dominant monogenetic disorder that is characterized by the formation of benign tumors in several organs as well as brain malformations and neuronal defects....

Mobilization of remyelinating cells spontaneously occurs in the adult brain. These cellular resources are specially active after demyelinating episodes in early phases of multiple sclerosis (MS). Indeed,...

Adult-born neurons in crayfish (Procambarus clarkii) are the progeny of 1st-generation precursor cells (functionally analogous to neuronal stem cells in vertebrates) that are located in a neurogenic...

Adult neurogenesis represents a striking example of structural plasticity in the mature brain. Research on adult mammalian neurogenesis today focuses almost exclusively on two areas: the subgranular...

Characterization of the means by which cells are generated and organized to make an organ as complex as the brain is a formidable task. Understanding how adult stem cells give rise to progeny that integrate...

Wilhelm His identified the rhombic lip in human embryos a century ago and thought that all mossy and climbing fiber neurons are derived from it. This has been accepted for more than one hundred years....

The Center for Disease Control estimates that there are 1.7 million brain injuries in the US each year with 51% of these injuries occurring during periods of cerebral development. Among this population...

The mechanisms of long-term effects of prenatal cocaine exposure (PCE) and consequent elevated impulsivity during adolescence are poorly understood. In this review, the development-programmed neural...

Copper (Cu) is an essential trace element in the brain that can be toxic at elevated levels. Cu accumulation is a suspected etiology in several neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer's disease,...

Hypoxic-ischemic (HI) brain injury is one of the most severe diseases in the neonatal central nervous system (CNS). The pathological mechanisms of HI brain injury, including cellular apoptosis, excitotoxicity,...

The activity of tyrosine hydroxylase (TH, EC 1.14.16.2) gene and protein determines the catecholamine level, which, in turn, is crucial for the organism homeostasis. The TH gene expression is regulated...

Brain injury in the premature infant, a problem of enormous importance, is associated with a high risk of neurodevelopmental disability. The major type of injury involves cerebral white matter and the...

Neonatal brain injury, caused by perinatal hypoxia-ischemia and extreme prematurity, remains a great challenge for prevention and treatment. There is no effective treatment for term hypoxic-ischemic...

Brain injury in the premature infant, a problem of enormous importance, is associated with a high risk of neurodevelopmental disability. The major type of injury involves cerebral white matter and the...

Executive dysfunction is a core feature of schizophrenia, but our understanding of the developmental course of this neuropsychological domain in the disease remains largely unexplored. A review of the...

Structural brain abnormalities have become an established feature of schizophrenia and increasing evidence points towards the progressive nature of these abnormalities. The brain abnormalities are most...

Bipolar disorder (BPD) and schizophrenia (SZ) are severe psychiatric illnesses with a combined prevalence of 4%. A disturbance of energy metabolism is frequently observed in these disorders. Several...

Increased density and altered spatial distribution of subcortical white matter neurons (WMNs) represents one of the more well replicated cellular alterations found in schizophrenia and related disease....

Brainstem monoamine areas such as the ventral tegmental area (VTA) send dopaminergic projections to the cerebral cortex that are widely distributed across different cortical regions. Whereas the projection...

During embryonic and early postnatal development the combination of cell proliferation, migration, survival and cell death is intimately regulated. In the mouse embryo, significant numbers of primordial...

Neurodegenerative disorders are typically characterized by progressive and extensive neuronal loss in specific populations of neurons and brain areas which lead to the observed clinical manifestations....

The NFAT (nuclear factor of activated T-cells) family of transcription factors functions as integrators of multiple signaling pathways by binding to chromatin in combination with other transcription...

The action of thyroid hormones (THs) in the brain is strictly regulated, since these hormones play a crucial role in the development and physiological functioning of the central nervous system (CNS)....

Neonatal stroke is increasingly recognized in preterm and term infants, and the rate of arterial ischemic infarction occurring around the time of birth is as high as the annual incidence of large-vessel...

Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are utilized in the treatment of depression in pregnant and lactating women. SSRIs may be passed to the fetus through the placenta and the neonate through...

Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder with high heritability and a likely complex genetic architecture. Much genetic evidence has accumulated in the last 20 years but no gene has been unequivocally...

Transforming growth factor betas (TGF-βs) are known as multifunctional growth factors, which participate in the regulation of key events of development, disease and tissue repair. In central nervous...

The issue of postnatal neurogenesis has gained great importance over the last few years and the recent amazing scientific advancements, changing our viewpoint on the long-lasting “no new neurons” dogma,...

Most of the gene candidates for the control of developmental programmes that underlie brain morphogenesis in vertebrates are the orthologues of Drosophila genes coding for signalling molecules or transcription...

Serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine, 5-HT) binds to numerous cognate receptors to initiate its biological effects. In this review, we have focused on the 5-HT2B receptor to address how signaling and expression...

Astrocytes are involved in multiple brain functions in physiological conditions, participating in neuronal development, synaptic activity and homeostatic control of the extracellular environment. They...

Brain areas affected by AD pathology are primarily those structures that are invovled in the regulation of “higher brain functions”. The functions these areas subserve such as learning, memory, perception,...